Chapter 19 – Santa Fe

On to Santa Fe

He’s excited to be back on the road. He’s centered again and ready for the world. They’re heading to Santa Fe now, passing through Albuquerque on their way. He’s really attracted to Santa Fe. When he was there earlier this year, in the middle of winter, he wanted to stay and find out why he was so attracted. He can do so this time.
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They’re driving north, near Magdalena, still in southern New Mexico. It’s high desert and very hot. It sure wasn’t this hot here when they were passing through last January! He’s tired yet peaceful from his days of vision questing. Maybe he should have rested another day in the woods, but he wanted to see what was ahead on the road.

Driving along, he sees a hawk carry off a snake. He sees two moons in the sky. He sees these distinct dark lines coming down from the sky and converging in the east to a point on the ground at sunset, like a dark reflection of the sun’s rays, as the sun sets in the west.
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They stop in Albuquerque for the night. They stay with Karen’s friend again. He’s feeling homesick for Berkeley, not that he really wishes he were there now. Albuquerque is a big, lazy, sprawled out city with no sense of itself. It reminds him of LA, from when he was a boy, before it got too big.

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They’re both eager to experience the magic of Santa Fe again, so at the break of day, they’re up, and, as soon as they’re ready, they head out. They decide to go west first, into the mountains, then north by back roads to Santa Fe.

They’re going slow, without any schedule and not in a hurry to get anywhere. They see a lot more this way – and run into all these wonderful synchronistic occurrences. For example – they stop along the road to stretch their legs and to feel the land under their feet, maybe half way to Santa Fe, and they meet some folks out walking. They all smoke a joint together, and the folks invite them to their nearby home.

They visit with the folks in their adobe house, near the river running by. The walls of adobe are very thick and keep it cool inside even on a day as hot as today. These folks and their friends are into peyote and don’t really want to hear about acid. In spite of their one-sidedness about acid, they are high and open folks.

They fill them in on all the local people politics and spiritual happenings. When he and Karen leave later in the day, they feel enriched and much better prepared to connect with the people and the land.
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Journeyman

They’re in Santa Fe. He feels very high and clear. He sees now that he wasn’t ready to fully wake up to who he is in Flagstaff. He sees now that he wasn’t able to relate to everyone there who needed him. He had to go the Gila and be with Ron first. Since then, he has found it much easier to be open and loving with folks.

When they arrived in Santa Fe yesterday, in the late afternoon, they went to the local backpacking store for a few things they needed and for information about camping and backpacking locally. The guy working there, Don, took a liking to them, and, when his friend, Carl, came to pick him up, they invited them to stay with them while they were in town.

Afterwards, riding in their car, Karen following with the van, Carl asked him if he is famous. He asked Carl why he asked. Carl said that it was something about him, just that he acted as if he were. He thought that he must have been putting out something special. He didn’t feel special though. He just felt good about himself.
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He has been with Don all morning today. Don’s a high brother. Don’s from New York, an artist trying to make it here. Talking with him, he has this flash of visiting the East Coast briefly with Karen but then coming back and living here, being a Medicine man, a healer.

He’s done with always being into himself. He doesn’t need to be anymore. He’s healed for now. He wants to work but not as a traditional therapist. He won’t be fixed to time or place anymore in his life. He wants to work primarily with acid. He wants to help facilitate acid gatherings. He wants to help form a new brotherhood of Medicine folks.
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He drops acid here today. He goes walking in town to clean out body and to become centered here. Walking, he continues to think of his work, stimulated by Don’s energy for his own work. He realizes that he’s a journeyman now looking for a way to do his work, to perfect himself, and to become the master within himself. Everything that’s happening to him on his journey is an effect of Wanderer, the spiritual master within him, coming to life.
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The next day, they all drop acid with him and walk around town together. While walking with them, he feels all this sexual energy and is sure that it’s Karen being turned on. He can feel her energy and is sure that it isn’t for him. Maybe it’s for Don, maybe it’s for Carl. All he knows is that she’s happier and mellower than she has been in a long time. He’s so tired of this. He has been through all this enough before with her.
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He notices this ugly growth on his skin. He’s afraid it’s skin cancer. It freaks him out some. Seeing it, he’s faced with his death. He realizes that he’s in a body that will die someday. He realizes that he doesn’t have forever. The puppy here at Don and Carl’s place chewed up Karen’s beloved shawl last night. Everything has an end. Someday a puppy will chew him up too. He needs to act as if each moment of his life is his last. He doesn’t have forever. He needs to wake up and be Wanderer now.
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The Artists’ Revolt

Don is an artist, but he has to work as a clerk in that backpacking store. He can't get any of his work shown in any of the local galleries here in town. This, in spite of having been well known in New York. He's very frustrated.

Don has talked with other artists here, and all of them, except for the lucky few with connections to the galleries, are just as frustrated. Don and his fellow artists are meeting tonight to discuss this and to see what they can do – how they can lead a successful artists' revolt. Don invites him along – to facilitate the discussion, he says. He likes Don and his artwork, so he agrees to come along and help.

There are maybe twenty of them in the room by the time they get going with the meeting. He’s not an artist and is not involved with the local politics, so he doesn't get involved in the meeting directly. Instead, he just makes sure that everyone gets a chance to speak and that everyone hears whoever is speaking. Afterwards Don and several of the others come up and thank him for doing this. They say that it helped.

There's a power growing within him, call it will or Hara, call it whatever you want. This power works through him, even without his knowing it. It is Wanderer coming to life within him, and this power attracts energy and meaning to him.
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When he arrived at the meeting earlier tonight, he immediately saw that there was much more to it than just him helping out Don. He saw this as soon as this very remarkable man, very tall and completely bald, walked into the room. It was an old friend of his from LA, Ed Steinbrecher. Their paths cross again! Synchronicity!

Ed has always been magical for him. Ed is from his earlier days, from years ago when he was still with Pamela. Ed's an artist. That's why he's here, but, more importantly, he's a powerful wizard and healer in his own way.

Synchronicity points always, and especially here and now, to a meaningful connection. Ed is here to show him how he can be still a healer, yet remain completely outside the mainstream, which is where he wants to be. Ed's an astrologer and a psychic who works with visualization and imagination. He has no degree and no credentials. He owns a gift shop. But people are always attracted to his energy and his wisdom and seek him out for help. He sought him out himself in his earlier days. He can still feel Ed’s powerful energy, even now, yet he knows now that he’s on his own path.
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Who Was That Unmasked Man?

Unless something unusual happens, I plan on leaving here tomorrow and driving into Colorado for my birthday. Also, we’ve been hearing about the Rainbow Gathering ever since we arrived in the Rockies. It’s a hippie gathering, folks into medicines. It’s supposed to be somewhere in Wyoming, in early July. I’m going.

We’re heading for Boulder now, should be there in a couple of days, going slow as usual. We’ll spend a week or so there before heading up to Wyoming. Sam needs some work for one thing. I was born in Denver for another. I want to check out Boulder and the mountains around. I’ve heard only good about Boulder. We also have folks there we want to visit that we can stay with.

We’ll come back here someday. Don wants us to stay, is following after us because we won’t. Larry wanted me to stay in Flagstaff. Ron just did in the Gila. Karen and I are traveling still. Maybe we’re going to be always on the road. I’d like to.

I’ve been encouraged by Ed Steinbrecher’s example – and by my work with Larry and Ron and Don – to continue working with others when they come my way, to continue to be my creative self in my life and in my work, and to not try to please anyone but myself.

I’m a wanderer now. Everything I want to do, I can do on the road. I can explore consciousness and body. I can learn from and live on the land. I can heal all life. I can help to change the world’s group head, allowing for the new Spirit. I can share all my knowledge and wisdom on the road.

One bit of knowledge that I’ve been sharing on the road—shared best here in Santa Fe because I’ve finally seen it clearly – is that all of us, whether we know it or not, are affected by the momentous changes going on in the world today, changes that are threatening and, at the same time, liberating to each and every one of us. We’re all scared and depressed and excited by what’s happening now in the world; but, for the most part, we’re not realizing where these feelings are coming from, thinking that they must be personal and from somewhere in our own lives. This leads to confusion for each of us.

Anyway, here I go again, back out onto the road, after having been welcomed here in Santa Fe this week. Overheard as we leave – “Who was that unmasked man?”
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Chapter 20 – Colorado

His Birthday in Colorado

They stop in Taos on their way north from Santa Fe. They don’t stay long this time either. He’s in a bit of a hurry. He wants to be in Colorado soon, where he was born forty years ago today.
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They just drove into Colorado. It doesn’t look any different than northern New Mexico. Even the towns still have Spanish names. Borders have nothing to do with the real world, only with the politics of man.

As they continue to drive north though, the land does change, and, when they are back in the high mountains, the land everywhere is lush and green. He welcomes this green after the dryness of the Southwest and New Mexico. It’s barely spring here in the high country of Colorado.

They continue to drive on back roads. When they are within fifty or so miles of Denver, they decide to stop somewhere alone the way. They aren’t ready for the big city yet. They find a place they can’t resist, a very beautiful and secluded spot, where they can park Sam and have a panoramic view of the mountains all around them. There’s a pond here in the meadow below them, with a creek running through. There are pine and aspens trees. They’re up above nine thousand feet.
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He hasn’t smoked in awhile. It was too confusing in Santa Fe. He thinks of it now, decides not to yet. Grass gets him too much into figuring things out all the time, and that’s not where he’s at now. He’s into life and people now, not so much into himself.

He dreams that night that he’s visiting with Bobby back in Berkeley. He asks Bobby if he still smokes as much grass as before, tells Bobby that he hasn’t smoked much, being on the road and all. In his dream, he’s looking forward to getting stoned with Bobby, waiting for him to offer. He didn’t bring his own. It feels good to be with him again.
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When he wakes up the next morning, he remembers that he did ask for a dream about himself and grass, feeling maybe that he has been too one-sided lately and should smoke again soon. Bobby’s carries his oral side. He’s always into grass and cigarettes and ice cream and all. Bobby’s also carries his physical masculinity, reminding him somewhat of his dad. In his dream, Bobby also reminds him of how much fun he can have smoking with others. He used to really enjoy being stoned with Bobby. They always had fun smoking together.

Driving into Denver later that day, he sees that it isn’t whether or not he smokes grass; it’s whether or not he’s being himself, doing what he wants to do when he wants to do it. He decides that he’s going to smoke later tonight when they get to Boulder.
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Boulder, Colorado

They head to Denver first because his old friend from UCLA, Larry, the young man who helped him with his doctoral research, is here, living in an ashram, still studying with his guru, the little fat kid.

They stop for a visit. Larry’s more solid now. Maybe his teacher is good for him. But he’s still on the kid’s trip, not on his own. They don’t stay long. The house that Larry and the other disciples live in is too weird and stifling for Karen and him. Also Denver is much too large and overwhelming for them. They’ve been almost two months on the road and in the woods, only rarely entering a city, certainly none this size.
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Later, driving on the turnpike from Denver to Boulder, he’s blown away by the beauty of the nearby mountains. As they drive into Boulder, he can almost touch them; they’re so close. He can understand now what his parents did by taking him away from all this when he was a baby. He would have been so different, growing up here. He realizes also that, while Santa Fe is magical, Boulder is more like home.
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They’re having Sam worked on today. Some people they met who live here and have a van told them where they can get him worked on by good and honest folks. The mechanics are going to have Sam for most of the day, so they’ll explore Boulder on their bikes. He’s so glad Karen thought to bring them. They can park Sam and use their bikes wherever they are.

They meet some folks in town, George and Linda. They live north of Boulder, in the foothills. They invite them to stay on their land while they’re in town. They can camp up this gulch on their land. They call John and Mickie too while they’re here, the folks they met when Sylvie ran away with the Mormons in Utah. They’re going to see them when they return here after the gathering.

They find the Rainbow Family “headquarters” here in Boulder and ask where the gathering will be. Somewhere near Lander, Wyoming is all the folks here can tell them. “Just drive into Lander, and someone will know,” one sister says.

Later, on their way up to George and Linda’s, they notice smoke coming from Sam and see that the rear wheels are still leaking grease. Those guys blew it when they worked on them earlier. They go back now and ask them to do it right, which they soon do. Now maybe they can relax for a while. Now maybe the wild man can come out of the hills, as he dreamt last night.